Baylor's divorce from the Clippers continues to get uglier. In yesterday's New York Post, Peter Vecsey reported, "there's talk by Johnnie Cochran's former law partner regarding a possible age-discrimination law suit . . . and worse."

Clipperblog exchanged emails with Michael McCann, Sports Illustrated legal analyst, law professor at Vermont Law School and Boston College Law School, and contributor to Sports Law Blog. I asked McCann whether Elgin Baylor would have an actionable age discrimination suit against the Clippers.

Here's McCann's take:

Absent a damaging piece of evidence (e.g., empirical evidence showing an unusual pattern of older employees being fired by the Clippers; evidence of a workplace where Baylor or other older employees were treated with hostility because of age; an email from ownership stating or alluding to Baylor's age as a source of concern etc.), it would probably be difficult for Baylor to succeed in an age discrimination lawsuit--assuming that Baylor was even fired or constructively discharged, rather than, as the Clippers contend, he voluntarily resigned. The Age Discrimination in Employment Act prohibits discrimination against persons over the age of 40 due to their age (California has a similar state law, the Fair Employment and Housing Act), but employers can generally relieve themselves of liability when they can show there were "reasonable factors other than age" to justify the employment decision.

Given the Clippers' on-court struggles under Baylor, and given that NBA general managers are routinely replaced when their teams' struggle, it would seem there were plausible business reasons for management to change direction. On the other hand, Baylor might question why the team's failures in previous seasons, under the same ownership group, did not trigger his dismissal and yet here they would. Still, it would seem the team has the upper-hand in that debate, especially if Baylor's employment contract (if he had one) contained language on expectations for team success.

Another plausible business reason would be if there had been an internal power struggle between Baylor and coach Mike Dunleavy, Sr. which was won by Dunleavy. In that scenario, the organization may have perceived that it was in its best interests to remove Baylor from any role in basketball operations, particularly if Dunleavy thought that Baylor was somehow disrupting his vision for the team.

Bottom line: Baylor would probably face an uphill fight in proving age discrimination, though until we know what was going on with the Clippers, it's hard to make any certain predictions.

Posted Wednesday, October 29 at 3:20PM

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Comments

NO. Baylor doesn't have a case. Clipper fans & Donald Sterlin have one. We have seen this team going nowhere for last two decades under Elgin. He has to provide detailed explanation about the perception this team garnered under his leadership.

If ol' Elgin is going for the age discrimination angle...he won't have much of a case, just solely on the fact that they reportedly offered him another position in the organizaton, and he turned it down. If his age was the problem, why in the hell would they even give him another job. Hell, Elgin has been pretty much out of touch for many years anyways, and today's NBA has passed him by.

Again, and I'm stating the obvious here...the only thing Sterling is guilty of in this case is not firing him a lot sooner. I don't have a lot of empathy for Elgin...he should just enjoy his twilight years. It's not like he has another job lined up.

Sadly, Elgin was forced to endure a tremendous amount of racial discrimination in his life against which he had no recourse. Now he is reduced to filing what is likely a groundless discrimination suit based on age. I hope he comes to his senses and stops listening to his parasite lawyer. Unless there is some sort of smoking gun email, which I doubt.

wrote:

Sadly, Elgin was forced to endure a tremendous amount of racial discrimination in his life against which he had no recourse. Now he is reduced to filing what is likely a groundless discrimination suit based on age. I hope he comes to his senses and stops listening to his parasite lawyer. Unless there is some sort of smoking gun email, which I doubt.

10/25/08 22:45:04

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